Current weather

Rachael Cundey’s streak of five victories in her school-level spelling bees, the Columbia County bees and the regional bees not only is unprecedented, but unlikely to be matched. As she enters high school next year and leaves her spelling bee eligibility behind, she leaves winning records that will stand as a monument to education, intellect and hard work.

We’re pretty confident that if you turn on the television tonight and tomorrow and tune in ESPN3 or ESPN2, you’ll see a genuine local celebrity: Rachael Cundey.

The rising Lakeside High School freshman this week is competing in the Scripps National Spelling Bee. The bee had elimination rounds Tuesday and today, but you’d be making a safe bet that Cundey will be in the finals.

On a weekend as nearly 1,600 graduates picked up diplomas from Columbia County public and private schools, there are plenty of reasons to worry that there weren’t as many students graduating as there should have been.

Evidence of those reasons come from the Georgia Department of Education, which this past week released the annual tally of graduation rates for all schools in the state.

Overall, Georgia’s rate increased by two percentage points. That’s progress, but it’s still lower than it should be. At 69.7 percent, that’s a failing grade.

Each year as the school year ends, thousands of students are turned loose to summer vacation. Many of them are kept in daycare facilities, or enrolled in camps or participate in other organized activities.

But many are left alone while their parents work, and far too many of them wind up looking for – and finding – mischief. Typically, the number of juvenile complaints rises during the summer as kids have more time and fewer people are watching them.

As the Columbia County school year winds to a close and seniors prepare for commencement exercises next weekend, it signals the end of an era.

And no, we’re not just talking about the retirement of School Superintendent Charles Nagle, though he’s largely responsible for the significant change that’s coming with the closure of Bel Air Elementary School.

If you live in the Stratford subdivision in Evans, or know some of the residents who do, you’ve seen a touch of the angst (and anger) over the reported thefts by a former treasurer of more than a quarter-million dollars from the community association’s coffers.

Likewise, you might have seen how many residents in that community lashed out at the association’s board members for apparently failing to notice the funds being pilfered until nearly five years had passed.

05/12/13 - 12:02am

Columbia County School Superintendent Charles Nagle has never been one to mince words, but he’s been especially blunt now that he’s retiring. In a world overflowing with weasel-wording politicians, it’s refreshing to see someone willing to cut through the tangle of nonsense.

It is entirely by coincidence that the Columbia County Board of Education opens discussion of its gloom-and-doom budget options for next year during national Teacher Appreciation Week.

On a week in which educators are celebrated, far too many of them are feeling threatened by ever-tightening budgets and increasingly bureaucratic demands that have little or nothing to do with teaching children.

Now that a half-dozen train-hopping trespassers have had their 38 days in jail, and 15 minutes of fame, what can we learn from this episode?

If nothing else, let’s hope the county can figure out how to speed up hearings for people charged with minor crimes.

To recap, the six 20-somethings were arrested back in March when a CSX railroad police officer caught them hiding in a freight train that had stopped in Grovetown. The separate groups of young people had climbed aboard in Atlanta, with the intention of getting a free ride to Savannah for St. Patrick’s Day festivities.

Columbia County’s school calendar lists the first full week in April as “spring break,” but it really should be labeled Masters Week.

That became evident when school board members voted Tuesday to give students and staffers an additional day off.

The rationale is that, as the Masters continues to grow as the areas’s most powerful tourist draw, its affect on Columbia County is increasing – with students and adults working either at the tournament or in hospitality related temporary positions, or with residents renting their homes to visitors.